As Kentuckians have homage today to the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at many events throughout the commonwealth on what would have been the 89th birthday of the civil rights pioneer, it’s important to remember what’s been accomplished as well as that which remains undone and, perhaps most importantly, what’s possible when it…
Editor’s note: The Bluegrass Beacon is a weekly syndicated statewide newspaper column posted on the Bluegrass Institute website after being released to and published by newspapers statewide. “All I want for Christmas is for Republicans to act like Republicans,” I recently wrote on Facebook. Responders aren’t optimistic. “LOL Jim Waters … I’ll bet you still…
The Supreme Court’s recent ruling that Missouri wrongly used its constitution’s Blaine Amendment to deny a publicly funded grant to a church-run preschool won’t directly affect growing efforts to add Kentucky to the list of states offering private school-choice programs in the form of tuition assistance via tax credits. Tax-credit proposals like ones introduced in…
A relatively new report from the Washington Examiner says that charter schools in Florida now significantly outperform the traditional schools in that state. Just of few of the comments include: On state exams, charter students outperformed their peers in traditional schools in 65 out of 77 comparisons; Charter students learned more from one year to…
David Hornbeck, an architect of the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) who describes himself as a “consultant to the Kentucky legislature, 1989-1990,” claims in a recent op-ed opposing charter schools: “Kentucky’s children have made more progress than those of any other state in the nation.” For such a claim to hold up under scrutiny of…
Some defenders of the education status quo contend that the existence of the Kentucky Education Reform Act renders charter schools useless in the Bluegrass State. But staff education analyst Richard Innes challenges the claim, taking issue with KERA architect David Hornbeck’s recent assertions that “Kentucky children have made more progress than any other state in…
The Bevin administration and House Republican leadership – despite hard pushes for other platform priorities such as right-to-work and prevailing-wage repeal – may settle for a mediocre charter-school bill. This is a testament to the stronghold the public-education complex has on our commonwealth and to its willingness to put money and control before students’ best…
Bluegrass Institute Scholar and Kentucky Board of Education (KBE) member Gary Houchens will participate in a town hall on charter schools at 6 pm today in Room 110 at Madisonville Community College Muhlenberg Campus, 406 W. Everly Brothers Blvd., Central City. The event is free and open to the public. Houchens, Ph.D., is associate professor…
For Immediate Release: Tuesday, February 21, 2017 Contact: Martin Cothran @ 859.329.1919, Jim Waters @ 270.320.4376 (FRANKFORT, Ky.) — The Family Foundation of…